He withdrew his hand from her and eased back on his heels.
“What?”
He panted with the effort of control. “I am sorry. Now is not the time for such diversions.”
* * *
She felt faint. She was heady with unfulfilled desire. He was kneeling between her legs and speaking in a low voice that resonated deep inside of her. But that wasn’t what had her sitting up in the bed and staring at him. What tormented her was the way he stroked his erect cock as he spoke. He palmed it in one hand that he ran expertly over the shaft. Up and down he stroked, making her crazy.
“Please,” she begged, even as her face heated with embarrassment.
“I want you to rest. When you wake again, we will talk.”
He sprang forward then, pinning her to the bed beneath him and pressing her against the satiny pillows.
Her heart quickened.
“I don’t want to sleep. I want you to—“
“Sleep,” he ordered against her ear. “I will be here when you wake.”
Inexplicably, she felt the welcoming call of exhaustion. Her eyes grew heavy, and suddenly she thought maybe sleep wasn’t such a bad idea.
She closed her eyes.
* * *
She woke slowly. This time, she didn’t harbor any misconceptions that she was home on the morning of her wedding. The fur coverlet draped over her was testimony enough that she was far from home.
She lay still while the desire to hide deep beneath the silken fur gradually dissipated. She remembered what had preceded this last rest, and her face heated with humiliation at the thought of her wanton behavior. She didn’t even know him, and she’d offered herself up to him on a silver platter. What of diseases and pregnancy? She hadn’t considered any of those things. What on earth had she been thinking? This morning, or was it yesterday when she’d practically thrown herself at the white angel? Tonight she was making out with a devil. She really had to get herself in hand.
“Are you ready to talk?”
She nearly hopped out of the bed. The only thing that kept her in place was her nakedness. Instead, she struggled to an upright position and stared open-mouthed at the man beside her. He lay casually, as if he’d slept with her a million times before. His hair, loosed from its plait, spilled across the pillow beside her like black satin and one very muscular, very naked leg was propped up just beyond the fall of the fur coverlet. She noted again how normal his skin seemed, how human. No snakeskin.
“You’re still here,” she finally said.
In response, he rolled towards the bedside table at his left and lifted a crystal decanter. Crimson liquid sloshed when he repositioned himself in the bed. “Of course,” he said. He raised one of two goblets off of the table and emptied a copious amount of the crimson fluid into it.
“I must apologize for my earlier behavior. Please understand that it’s been a long while since I looked upon a woman. When I saw you naked under the glow of the candlelight…Let’s say I lost my self-control and leave it at that. I assure you, it will not happen again. Cream sherry?”
“No, thank you.” She pushed the glass away.
“A restorative. You’ll need it.”
His little apology, though well meant, annoyed her He was apologizing for giving her what had been her most erotic experience to date and promising never to do it again. To her great shame, she wanted him to do it again, no matter what he was. Though he was right to stop them from going any further then they had earlier, she thought he should leave the option for future erotic encounters open. “Where am I?”
“Prague.”
She forced herself to stay calm. “You have wings, don’t you, and you flew across the ocean with me in tow?”
“Mmhmm.” He held the glass out to her a second time. “Please.”
She took the glass and gave the fluid a cautious sniff. It smelled like sherry. It even had the syrupy texture of cream sherry. Raising the glass to her lips, she swallowed a mouthful. The liquid slid down her throat, leaving a pleasant burn in its wake. It was sweet and made her feel hot all over. She upended the glass, swallowing as quickly as she could. “More,” she demanded.
He complied. When she was working on her third glass, he settled back into the pillows and rested his arm across his propped up knee. “Are you hungry?”
She realized quite suddenly that she was hungry. Famished, to put a finer point on it. “Yes.”
Again he turned to the bedside table. This time, he lifted an antique phone and began punching in numbers. “Dobry vecer. Ano,” he said into the phone.
He’d called room service. Okay, so now she knew she was in a hotel in Prague. Not just any hotel though, from the looks of it, it had to be five-star all the way. Everything was too fine, too expensive. For crying out loud, the hotel was housed in a castle. So she knew she was in a hotel in Prague, and had been brought here by a man-thing with wings.
“Are you ready to talk now?”
He’d set the phone down and turned to face her. She nodded. “First tell me who or what you are, and if you plan to sacrifice me or something. I think I have the right to know if my mortality is in peril.”
“I am Raven.” He bowed over her hand. He’d had to tug it from the coverlet to free it, but when he had, he placed a lingering kiss in her palm. His lips felt moist and soft against her skin. From head to toe, she tingled. And all the while, those sable eyes were heavy on her, making her face heat again. “And you are Charity. Charity, which is love, as the Bible says.”
He was like something out of a fantasy. “Charity,” she repeated dreamily, then wanted to kick herself. This was precisely why she’d never gotten a date in high school. She was constantly saying stupid things.
“I am one of the Watchers.” He considered this. “One of the fallen angels spoken of in old.”
“Angel? As in heaven?”
He held up a hand. “Don’t interrupt. If you have any questions, I’ll address them when I’ve finished. I have much to say and little time to say it. Already, he moves against us. We must get on the road.”
“Why?”
He shifted in the bed. The movement shifted the coverlet so it fell almost entirely free of him. Nipples the color of red wine were suddenly visible, as was much of his very muscular right thigh. She caught her breath. Soft curls of hair made a path over his chiseled abdomen and down under the fur, where the only part of his body still covered lay. As her mouth filled with saliva, she registered the slightest desire to pull the covers away and feast her eyes on the rest of him.
“Don’t interrupt,” he was saying. “When I say fallen angel, I do not mean fallen from the war between God and Lucifer. I fought on the side of God in that battle and was well pleased when we arose the victors. If I had the choice to make again, I wouldn’t change my decision to fight. My fall from grace happened some time after that, but we will be touching on that battle between God and Lucifer shortly, so pay attention.” He caught the path her eyes were burning through the air and paused. “Would you prefer it if I removed…”
“No!”
“I thought it would be distracting for you to listen to me if I wasn’t covered in some way.” He gave her a grin that made her toes curl.
“Lust!” he declared. A guilty flush had her looking away from him and sipping more sherry. “It’s why I fell. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we. Prior to my fall, an angel I’ll call Yaza decided he wanted to have sex with human women and fill them with his seed. It was the sex he wanted, but also the allure of having offspring as men have offspring appealed to him. The appeal proved to be too much of a temptation for Yaza to ignore. You have to understand, travel from the heavens to earth can be accomplished among the angels with relative ease, as can the taking on of a human form. It was a frequent practice, actually. The only rule was that we never got involved in the lives of men without Father’s express permission.
“Yaza knew what he wanted to do was forbidden. He also knew that even though Fathe
r would never agree to such a thing, it was possible. And that is why Yaza didn’t want to descend to earth alone. He convinced one hundred and ninety-nine of us to descend with him. We were called the Watchers, and we all swore oaths to each other and bound ourselves to the adventure.
“And so, we set off for the earth. But when we got there, some decided making love to women wasn’t enough. Feeling the sweetness of soft thighs wrapped about your waist while you move slowly, inexorably to that final bliss wasn’t enough. Some went further.” He paused here and looked at her. She assumed he was making certain he still had her attention. He did. She returned his stare, and nodded for him to continue. “Listen closely, Charity, because the things I’m telling you are not known. They have been hidden from men for millennia. Of course, there are a few men who know of the things I speak, rare men. Understand I am imparting to you a great mystery.” She nodded again, and he went on. “All of the things you feared when you were young, all of the creatures you were told aren’t real…are.”
She stared at him. She wanted to think he was crazy or toying with her, but she couldn't. Already she had seen too much to doubt him. “What kind of creatures are we talking about?”
“Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, all of them are real. But let me continue. I believe I was saying that many of our number weren’t content to enjoy sex with women. Many of us fell so low as to sleep with animals. Wolves, tigers, horses, even sheep. The resulting offspring were half-Watcher, half-animal beasts. Take a wolf/Watcher child, for instance. Some had the ability to shapeshift between human form, spirit form, and wolf form at will while others were born horrible human/wolf hybrids without the ability to shapeshift at all. All of these creatures, all of these crossbreeds, were called beastmen.
“Matters worsened when even the women failed to give birth to normal babies. The first sign of trouble was the abridged gestation period. Nine months became three days. And when they gave birth, the babies were half human and half watcher. They grew at a rapid rate as well. In one month’s time, they were the size of an average human. Rare was the occasion that a woman gave birth to a normal baby. But the most important thing to remember here is that all of these creatures were born out of the will of God. The offspring of the women were human but with unnatural spirits in them. Do you see the problem? All of us are created to worship God, so there’s an inherent hunger in us to be close to our Creator. It’s like a spark of light in us that’s constantly burning.”
“I’ve never seen a serial killer that looked like he wanted to get closer to God.”
“All men, all angels were created to worship God. All of us, Charity. Usually this is a good thing because God is present in all of us…usually. But sometimes we lose that union with God. When that connection is severed, all that’s left is our insatiable hunger for that light. It’s how He made us. For the Watchers, when we turned from God and left the heavens, we lost our connection.”
“So, what about your offspring?”
Raven settled back into the pillows and looked away from her. For a few seconds, he held a hand before his face and seemed to be studying it as though it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “They never had a chance,” he finally said.
“What happened to them?”
“Merciful God,” he sneered, snatching up the decanter and pouring himself a drink. “In His divine arrogance, He’s created all of us to worship Him. To hunger for Him. For our offspring, it wasn’t any different. But because they came from us, from Watchers, He turned His divine back on them as thoroughly as though they were the ones who had sinned against him. Punish me, it was my choice to leave heaven, but don’t punish them.”
“So what happened?”
“The hunger was still there, Charity. That inner need to be close to the Creator was there, but there was no light in them. Not even a spark.” He turned to face her then, his eyes dark with rage. “He had to know what would happen. It’s His own fault.”
“For the love of God, what happened?”
“We all hunger for the light, Charity. When it’s taken away from us, we get at it any way we can.”
She swallowed hard as the realization of what he was saying dawned.
“Do you know what happens to an angel when he leaves the light of God?”
She didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all. Why did they have to talk anyway? Why couldn’t they just lie in the bed and make out? She didn’t want to think of fallen angels. Years of parochial school had taught her more than she’d ever wanted to know about evil. Nevertheless, she heard the words slip from her mouth in a shaky voice that didn’t sound anything like her own. “They become demons.” At his nod, she brought her knees up under her chin and buried her face in her free hand. She had to ask the next question, though there was nothing in her that wanted to. “And you are…”
“I prefer to think of myself as a fallen angel.”
She glanced up at him. “Aren’t demons supposed to be ugly?”
“Some are.”
“And your offspring?”
“Look human. But they have the spirits of demons inside of them. Evil spirits whose hunger for God will never be filled. The God that turned His back on them and still resides in men. The closest our offspring can get to the oneness with God they seek, to that peace humans take for granted, is through men.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she suddenly demanded.
“Because you need to know.”
“But I don’t want to know. Take me back, take me home. I don’t want to hear any more.” Like a child, she clamped her hands over her ears.
“I can’t do that, Charity.”
She wanted to get to her feet, run away from him but her bare body kept her frozen beneath the covers. That, and the fact that she doubted her legs would hold her if she tried to stand. “My gosh, Raven, you’re telling me vampires are real, aren’t you? Vampires and werewolves—“
“The latter are called beastmen,” he corrected. “Vampires are part human, but originally beastmen weren’t. They looked human, but they were made from—“
“I know! From fallen angels and animals. This is crazy talk. Can’t you see this is crazy talk? What the hell do I have to do with any of this? For the love of God, I work at a bank. And anyway, if all of this actually happened, why the hell wouldn’t someone step in, an angel or someone?”
“Because Father was content to give us enough rope to hang ourselves. You would think that the sight of our offspring devouring humans would have humbled us, but it didn’t. It was quite the sport, actually. Seeing God’s beloved creation reduced to the status of food. And soon, even this abomination wasn’t enough. Azriel, one whose goodness had all but vanished in his years on the earth, took it upon himself to recruit six Watchers to teach sorcery to men. The seven Watchers told men that by learning special incantations, they could control the vampires and beastmen and dominate them. We were all so callus, Charity. As if it meant nothing for those seven to teach men the mysteries of heaven. Such a thing should never have been done. Azriel was the cause of Father’s greatest wrath.”
A gentle knock at the door made Charity jump.
“Room service,” Raven explained. Pushing the netting aside, he rose from the bed.
As he stood, the silken fur coverlet slipped from Charity. Dazed, she realized the fur coverlet wasn’t a coverlet at all, but him. He’d wrapped her in his wings. They were soft and furry and black as the night, and as she watched, they folded in on themselves in the manner of a hand fan. In the time it took him to stride from the bed to the armoire where a robe hung on a brass hook, the wings were folded into small flaps that fit easily under the fur-lined robe. He disappeared into a small foyer and reappeared moments later, pushing a fine cart with heaps of food atop it into the room.
“I didn’t think,” he began, “you would want the waiter to see you in your present state of undress.”
She set her arms over her breasts in a feeble attempt t
o shield her nakedness from him. He had, after all, seen much more than her breasts. “Thank you.”
Though she was still reeling from her conversation, her stomach gave a lurch as she took in the salmon filets, thin strips of smoked salmon and capers, the massive bowls of homemade mashed potatoes with fine porcelain pitchers of portobello gravy, butter-steamed broccoli, and fluffy mounds of wild rice. There were two plates piled high with slices of baked ham, an entire turkey, and separate bowls for the boiled potatoes, roasted carrots, and a massive casserole of something Raven referred to as Mutton Stew. The name didn’t sound very appealing, but the aroma of lamb, onions, parsley, and potatoes was intoxicating. Billows of steam rose from the delicious offering, and she salivated despite her present ire. It was enough food to feed a small army. The crème de la crème were three bottles of red wine, four bottles of white wine, and two great pitchers of ale. She was so hungry she could have drank the wine straight from the bottle and eaten with her fingers.
“So much food,” she said.
“I’m very hungry.” He dipped a finger into the mashed potatoes and slowly drew it out. Puffs of fluffy, white potato clung to it. As if his aim was to torment her, he sucked his finger into his mouth, moaning in ecstasy, before drawing it free of his lips. “I’d forgotten how good food was. Have some.” Again, his finger disappeared into the mound of potatoes and came free covered in white fluff. “Come here.”
“You scare the hell out of me, then try to ply me with food?” she protested. “No, thank you. I want to go home.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You haven’t eaten in hours. You must be hungry.”
“I’m not, though,” she lied.
“Come here, or I’ll come get you.” He paused to gaze into her eyes. “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Under the circumstances, she thought the lascivious grin he was wearing was highly inappropriate.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
The Nephilim War: Book One Page 4
